Data centers are generally centralized facilities that provide Internet and intranet services needed to support businesses and organizations. A typical data center can house various types of electronic equipment, such as computers, servers (e.g., email servers, proxy servers, and DNS servers), switches, routers, data storage devices, and other associated components. A given data center can have hundreds or thousands of such equipment interconnected in a distributed fashion. Directly managing each piece of equipment independently poses a considerable administrative burden.